- Rice exporters would have to find new contracts worth just 400,000 tonnes to meet the second quarter's export target of 2 million tonnes, said the Viet Nam Food Association (VFA).

Chairman of the association Truong Thanh Phong said that despite the good start to the year, exporters should continue to proactively look for new customers in preparation for the third quarter and the summer-autumn crop. "If demand is low in the third quarter, the VFA will buy 1 million tonnes of rice to stockpile during that period, in order to steady the price and support farmers," Phong said, adding that the Government had also instructed the association to stockpile 1 million tonnes to coincide with the winter-spring crop in the first quarter. According to the VFA, the Philippines, Viet Nam's largest rice importer, would reduce the amount of rice it imports from Viet Nam by around 200,000 tonnes this year. The country usually imports roughly 1.5-1.8 million tonnes of Vietnamese rice. The association was also concerned that exports to the Middle East, Africa and the United Arab Emirates, that account for more than 30 per cent of total exports, would suffer due to political uncertainty in the region. However, the association expected demand from other markets including Indonesia and Bangladesh would offset those losses. In the first quarter alone, the country signed export contracts worth a total of more than 1 million tonnes with Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Cuba. Phong said that thanks to rising demand, the rice price in the domestic market was currently high at VND7,600-7,800 per kilo, up VND500-600 over last week, though the country was in the harvesting season. In the first quarter, Viet Nam exported more than 1.8 million tonnes of rice worth US$884 million, up 42 per cent and 46 per cent in volume and value compared with the same period last year